heckit's blog: June 2014

Monday, June 30, 2014

love

congrats Perry and Ed on your nuptials.

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

When another person makes you suffer

I found this small plastic figure in a pool of dried crimson as I entered the Alemany farmers' market.

“When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That's the message he is sending.”
--Thích Nhát Hanh.

Monday, June 23, 2014

I don't know exactly what a prayer is

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?
--Mary Oliver
From "The summer day";
New and Selected Poems 1992

Sunday, June 22, 2014

However the Spirit works in You

However the Spirit works in you,

work with that Spirit.

However the Spirit bears love in you,

let that love grow.

If beauty or friendship feed your joy,

bathe your heart in those things.

If words or silence nourish your peace,

give time to them to bless you.

If baseball makes you more patient

then play baseball.

Whatever nourishes the Spirit in you

practice, that it may bear fruit.

And whatever diminishes

your kindness or generosity,

whatever chokes your faithfulness,

or diverts your gentleness and self-control,

whatever assaults the Spirit and its life in you,

let go of those things.

If watching the news or working too long

drains your compassion,

then repent of those things

and pray that you find a way

to tend the Spirit in you,

whose fruit already is there within you,

whole and life-giving, quietly ripening.

--Steve Garnaas-Holmes.

Saturday, June 21, 2014

Intimate Impressionism

Antoine Vollon Mound of Butter, 1875

While the National Gallery of Art is going renovation, the de Young has on loan from its Mellon collection Intimate Impressionism from the National Gallery on view. The show is small and intimate as are the paintings, which provide a peak into the work the impressionists’ explorations and interests. Having visited the National Gallery recently, I had viewed many of the works. I provide some of my favorites.